Chapter 18 Reed
Reed
“Stay put,” Eliza’s voice cuts through the blackout. “I’m getting a candle.”
I hear her moving around, muttering, and then a match strikes. The room fills with warm light as she places a candle on the table, then another, and then a small altar’s worth of votives.
“Very romantic,” I say, then immediately wish I hadn’t.
“Very practical,” she corrects, but I catch the hint of a smile in her voice. “I steal leftovers from Eden. They’re beeswax.”
I watch her shuffle to a squat woodstove in the corner, open the door, and work on lighting it. Within minutes, she’s got a fire crackling, and I immediately feel the warmth.
“Better?” she asks.
“Much.” I watch her move around her house, closing curtains against the storm, adjusting candles. “You’re good at this.”
“Practice.” She settles into her chair, but there’s tension in her shoulders. “This city has shitty infrastructure. Just pray the water main doesn’t burst.”
I chuckle softly. I want to ask about earlier, about what she was going to say before the lights went out, but something in her posture wards me off. “My ankle feels better already.”
“The ice is working, then. Speaking of which…” She gestures toward the window where snow is piling against the glass. “There’s no shortage of that for the next few days.”
“Silver lining.”
“Always looking for the bright side, aren’t you?”
There’s something almost wistful in her voice. “I’m working on it I guess.”
She shakes her head with a smile. “You spend enough time with Eden and you’ll be sniffing daisies and smiling a lot more.”
The fire pops, and I watch Eliza’s profile in the flickering light. She looks younger somehow, softer, without the defensive edge she usually carries.
“You should get out of those wet clothes,” she says suddenly, then her cheeks flush. “I mean, you’ll catch hypothermia or something. I probably have something that’ll fit.”
She disappears upstairs, returning with an armload of fabric. “These are my brother-in-law’s. Not sure who left them here after a family dinner.”
I examine the clothes—flannel pants and a thermal shirt that definitely belong to someone broader than me. “Will I look ridiculous?”
“Probably. But you’ll be warm and ridiculous instead of wet and ridiculous.”
“Fair point.”
Changing clothes with a sprained ankle proves more challenging than expected. Eliza hovers nearby, clearly torn between helping and preserving my dignity. She closes her eyes, and I yank off my wet pants and shirt, trying to cover myself before this woman thinks I’m a total mess.
“I’m fine,” I insist, hopping on one foot while trying to pull on the oversized flannel pants. “I suspect you have these because the donkey attacked Koa or Nate.”
She giggles—an actual giggle. It’s charming, and my delight at the sound causes me to wobble.
Eliza sucks in a breath. “You’re going to fall over.”
“I’m not going to—” I teeter dangerously, still shirtless.
“For fuck’s sake.” She steps forward, steadying me with one hand while helping guide my injured foot through the pant leg. The heat of her palm on my skin is enough to make me forget what season we’re in. “There. Was that so hard?”
I cannot make a joke about her use of the word hard. The borrowed clothes hang loose on my frame, making me look like a kid playing dress-up. Yes, I’ll think about how stupid I must appear to distract from my giant boner.
“How do I look?”
“Like a scarecrow,” she says, but her smile takes the sting out of it. “A very cute scarecrow.”
I pause. “You think I’m cute?”
Eliza breathes in through her nose and stomps over to the kitchen, emerging with crackers, cheese, a few clementines, and …
“The soup is cold,” she says. “I can heat it on the wood stove and risk burning it, or we can just suck it up and eat it at room temperature. You’re the guest, so you choose.”
I settle on the couch, propping my ankle on a pillow. I want to talk more about her thinking I’m cute, but my stomach growls loudly, so I say, “Cold soup for the win. Like Gazpacho. Or something.”
Eliza smiles, looking like I’ve passed some sort of test, and busies herself ladling soup, not meeting my eyes.
“Eliza…” I start carefully.
“Dig in,” she says and clanks her spoon against mine before taking a bite.
We eat in relative silence, the only sounds being the storm outside and the occasional crackle from the fire.
The canned soup is good; I think it’s alphabet soup, which I always wanted as a kid, but my mother refused to serve.
The accompanying cookies taste even better than they did at the exchange.
“What would you be eating tonight if you had electricity?” I ask, suppressing a moan at the buttery flavor of the cookie.
Eliza shrugs and finishes her soup. “This… but warm.” She laughs despite herself, and the sound loosens something in my chest. This feels normal, easy, like we could do this every night and never get tired of it.
“This is nice.” I regret the words when she tenses.
“It’s just dinner.”
“Is it?”
Eliza sets down her spoon, that guarded expression creeping over her features. “Reed—”
“We’re snowed in together, eating by candlelight, and you just helped me into borrowed pajamas. You said I’m cute. If this isn’t at least a little romantic, I’m seriously misreading the situation.”
“You’re injured. I’m being practical.”
“Are you?”
She stands abruptly, moving toward the window. “I should check on the animals.”
“In a blizzard?”
“They might be scared. The wind’s really picking up.”
“Eliza, you can’t go out in this.”
“I can’t?” Her voice sharpens. “Since when do you decide what I can and can’t do?”
I struggle to my feet, wincing as weight hits my ankle. “Since it’s dangerous and unnecessary. Your animals have shelter, food, and water. They’re fine.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You’re willing to risk your safety to avoid talking to me.”
“I’m not avoiding anything.” She yanks on boots and tugs her scarf in place. Aggressively dressing, if that’s possible.
I furrow my brow. “Really? Because every time things get real between us, you find a reason to leave.”
“That’s not—” She spins to face me, eyes flashing. “You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“I can’t… I’m not good at this, Reed. Feelings and relationships and all that emotional bullshit. I take care of animals and run a business and keep my sisters from killing each other. That’s what I’m good at.”
“You’re good at taking care of people, too,” I counter. “You took care of me tonight. A few times, actually.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
She grabs her coat from the hook by the door. “I’m checking on them.”
“Not alone, you’re not.”
“Reed, you can barely walk.”
“Then we’ll move slowly.”
I start toward my coat, and Eliza moves to block me. “This is insane. You’ll make your ankle worse.”
“And you’ll freeze to death out there.”
“I’ve been taking care of myself for years.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to.”
We’re standing close now, close enough that I can see the fear beneath her anger.
I can see her pulse thrum in her neck, the shine on her lips where she licks them with her tongue.
She’s not worried about the goats. She’s worried about what happens if we stay here together, in this warm, candlelit space where pretending we’re just friends becomes impossible.
“Give me the coat,” I say, reaching for the garment in her hands.
“No.” She pulls it closer to her chest.
“Eliza.”
“Reed.”
Somehow we’re both holding her scarf now, each of us pulling gently in opposite directions like we’re children fighting over a toy. But there’s nothing childish about the way she’s looking at me or the way my heart is hammering against my ribs.
“You can’t keep running,” I whisper.
“Watch me,” she says, but her voice wavers.
The scarf stretches between us, soft wool connecting us across two feet of charged air. Outside, the wind howls, and inside, something else entirely builds to a storm. I smile, appreciating the perfection of her last name. I let go of my end of the scarf.